Herald Volume LXIII Issue 10

The Yale Herald Volume LXIII, Number 10 New Haven, CT Friday, Apr. 14, 2017

EDITORIAL STAFF Editor-in-Chief: Oriana Tang Managing Editors: Emma Chanen, Anna Sudderth Executive Editors: Tom Cusano, Sophie Haigney, Sarah Holder, Lily Sawyer-Kaplan, David Rossler, Rachel Strodel, Charlotte Weiner Senior Editors: Libbie Katsev, Jake Stein Culture Editors: Luke Chang, Marc Shkurovich Features Editors: Hannah Offer, Eve Sneider Opinion Editors: Emily Ge, Robert Newhouse Reviews Editors: Mariah Kreutter, Nicole Mo Voices Editor: Bix Archer Insert Editor: Eli Lininger Audio Editor: Will Reid Copy Editors: Jazzie Kennedy, Meghana Mysore

From the editors

ONLINE STAFF Bullblog Editor-in-Chief: Marc Shkurovich Bullblog Associate Editors: Lora Kelley, Lea Rice Online Editor: Megan McQueen

Volume LXIII, Number 10 New Haven, Conn.

Friday, Apr. 14, 2017

DESIGN STAFF Graphics Editor: Joseph Valdez Design Editor: Winter Willoughby-Spera Executive Graphics Editor: Haewon Ma

Whaddup kiddos, Right now we’re in that weird space, about equidistant from both spring break and finals, where the weather is getting tantalizingly warmer yet summer vacation remains agonizingly far off. Some of you might already have your summer plans set in stone, and if that describes you, then I don’t care if you’ll be interning at Goldman Sachs or saving the rainforest in Bolivia: fuck off. Fuck off, on behalf of all us who are still in phone interview limbo, desperately scrambling for backup options with applications that haven’t closed yet.

But as far as cool plans go, it’s tough to beat travel. Being immersed in a new culture, a new language, and a new landscape is one of the most valuable experiences a person can get. So check out our cover story, a poignant, vibrant photo essay on Cuba by Nika Zarazvand, TD ’20, who traveled there over spring break.

If art’s your thing, get the scoop on the new film Cezanne et Moi from Emma Keyes PC ’19, or let Fiona Drenttel, TC ’20, fill you in on George Bush’s Portraits of Courage. And speaking of lessthan-universally-adored presidents, Peter Rothpletz SY ’19 takes a look at the intersection between comedy and journalism in the age of Trump.

Whether you’re an artist or a comedian or a politician-to-be, make sure to enjoy the weather a little bit before finals descend upon us with the wrath of a Lovecraftian Old God, mmkay? It was 60 degrees out this afternoon. Others might see it as a bad thing when the temperature’s higher than your calculus grade, but all I see is cause for celebration.

Carpe diem, motherfuckers, Mariah Kreutter Reviews Editor

2 – The Yale Herald

BUSINESS STAFF Publisher: Patrick Reed Advertising Team: Alex Gerszten, Garrett Gile, Tyler Morley, Bedel Saget, Jr., Harrison Tracy The Yale Herald is a not-for-profit, non-partisan, incorporated student publication registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office.

If you wish to subscribe to the Herald, please send a check payable to The Yale Herald to the address below. Receive the Herald for one semester for 40 dollars, or for the 2016 - 2017 academic year for 65 dollars.

Please address correspondence to: The Yale Herald P.O. Box 201653 Yale Station New Haven, CT 06520-1653 oriana.tang@yale.edu www.yaleherald.com The Yale Herald is published by Yale College students, and Yale University is not responsible for its contents. All opinions expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the views of The Yale Herald, Inc. or Yale University. Copyright 2017 The Yale Herald.

Cover by Joseph Valdez YH Staff

THIS WEEK’S ISSUE 10 COVER

Incoming

Experience Havana, Cuba, up close with Nika Zarazvand, TD ’20, who brings the city to life in a photo essay of her travels.

Justin Trudeau The Canadian prime minister introduced a bill to fully legalize marijuana, solidifying his status as North America’s dopest (pun intended?) head of state.

6 OPINION Driving under the influence: Clement Dupuy, HC ’18, explores an obstacle to the legalization of marijuana.

Nicole Mo, BK ’19, and Rob Newhouse, HC ’19, go head-to-head on the pressing dairy issues of our time.

Outgoing United Airlines A video of America’s largest Legacy Carrier forcibly removing a 68-year-old doctor from a flight revealed that United is not unconditionally committed to excellent customer service, surprising none of the 20 million customers the airline served in 2017.

SCHEDULE Saturday

Just Add Water: Pathologist’s Day Show Ezra Stiles Dining Hall 9:30 p.m.

Saturday

La Orquesta Tertulia // Foam // Maple Brown 216 Dwight Street 9:00 p.m.

Tuesday

Workshop: Comedy in Film 149 York Street 4:00 p.m.

Friday

Startup Yale Awards Yale Entrepreneurial Institute 8:30 a.m.

FEATURES 8 14

Lydia Buonomano, DC ’20, examines who is transferring to the new colleges, and why.

Take a stroll through East Rock Park with Theo Kuhn, SY ’18.

16 CULTURE Peter Rothpletz, SY ’19, addresses the new Late Night.

Fiona Drenttel, TC ’20, thinks about what George W. Bush’s recently published book of paintings, Portraits of Courage, says about the man who painted them.

18 REVIEWS Emma Keyes, PC ’19, turns a critical eye to the friendship at the heart of Cézanne et Moi. Sahaj Sankaran, SM ’20, finds Ghost in the Shell lacking.

Emma Chanen, BK ‘19, recommends Frank as the perfect net flick.

Nicole Mo, BK ‘19, warms up to Mitski’s cover of “Fireproof.”

20 VOICES Contrasting her father’s school experience in Mao’s China and her own experience of the American public school system, Catherine Yang, TC ’19, reflects on education and indoctrination.

Gregory Suralik, TD ’17, composes texts.

Apr. 14, 2017 – 3

INSERTS

THE NUMBERS

YALE ADMISSIONS REPORT

John Kerry’s visit 25 - homework assignments i failed to turn in because of how great this weather is

After a long and difficult admissions process, we, the Yale Admissions Office, have finally sent out final acceptances to the potential Class of 2021. We are pleased to announce that Yale has, once again, admitted an absolutely stellar group. Here are some highlights: - In an incredible show of diversity, admitted students hail from over twenty different countries and seven different New England prep schools!

- Enthusiasm was high this year; hundreds of applicants wrote their essays about how they’d like nothing better than to attend Yale (like their fathers, and their fathers before them). As always, the Admissions Office looks very favorably upon such clear excitement and passion for our institution.

-The number of applicants has risen quite considerably from last year. Our new campaign, involving taking pictures of Cross Campus on the one day a year it resembles a Spring paradise, has proved extremely effective.

- This year, only four applicants applied to Yale by accident, meaning to apply to Harvard instead (of course, all four were admitted for showing excellent taste in institutes of higher education).

- Over two dozen admitted students are published authors!

- Over three dozen admitted students applied as a joke!

- One applicant, ‘Adam Wheeler’, demonstrated not only excellent academic commitment but also a passion for imitating signatures, which is just the sort quirky hobby we encourage here at Yale.

- Sahaj Sankaran YH Staff

4 – The Yale Herald

16 - shirtless frat boys sighted on cross campus 0 - people who were impressed by said shirtless douchebags 4,666 - Yalies who have changed their profile pictures with a caption saying, “spring has sprung️” as if it’s some sort of original phrase 1 - person who isn’t running for a YCC position who actually gives a shit about the elections 1 - time I jacked off in Bass Sources 25 - straight Ds 16 - the 16 holes burned in my retinas by their white, white skin 0 - overheard conversation between douchebags talking about how “bullshit” it was that they “hadn’t got any pussy” 4,666 - my depressing Facebook feed 1- “...out of all the atendants at the start of the debate, there was only one student unaffiliated with any organization required to attend the event.” http://yaledailynews.com/ blog/2017/04/12/ycc-candidates-meet-in-debate-internalreforms-university-policy/ 1 - the words “tyler wuz here” - Tyler Hart

Top 5 Low-Key Booty Calls 5 Netflix and Hill—watching Stranger Things outside Kline Biology Tower.

4. Netflix and Kill—Murder is an aphrodisiac 3. Netflix and Dill—get creative with those pickles.

2. Netflix and Bill—Get William Nye the science guy over and go to town.

1. U up?

- Vicki Beizer

sarah.holder@yale.edu oriana.tang@yale.edu

oriana.tang@yale.edu

OPINION

OPINION

The high road

by Clement Dupuy

Clement Dupuy is the President of Yale’s chapter of Students For Sensible Drug Policy.

O

n Mar. 23, Yale Professor Deepak D’Souza made an argument that drug policy reformers have struggled to respond to for years: legalizing marijuana will lead to increased rates of drugged driving. While potentially convincing at face value, this claim drug war apologists have been making for years disintegrates upon scrutiny. It does so for two reasons. First, we don’t actually know that regulating marijuana leads to higher rates of drugged driving.

And second, even if it does, there are ways of tackling this problem that don’t involve continuing America’s disastrous drug war on the poor and people of color.

The problem with linking marijuana use to impaired driving is that THC, the active component in marijuana that makes people “high,” stays in your system long after its effects have worn off. In heavier users, metabolites can stay in the bloodstream up to thirty days past the time of last use—well after a user is no longer impaired. Thus, a test that finds THC metabolites in a driver’s blood doesn’t say anything about whether a driver was impaired at the time of a stop.

This means that the increased rates of drivers testing positive for THC in states like Colorado merely tracks increased use of marijuana by adults (which we would expect) but not necessarily increased impairment. In fact, D’Souza himself admits this in an article the Herald ran last week when he acknowledged that we need a test that can “differentiate current use (at the time of the incident or being pulled over) from remote use—we don’t yet have such a test.”

Certainly, law enforcement should develop a reliable field sobriety test to detect people whose recent marijuana use has compromised their driving abilities, but this does not mean that legalization will lead to dramatic increases in impaired driving. In fact, a 2015 National Highway Transportation Safety Administration report directly disproved D’Souza’s underlying assumption that marijuana impairs driving at all. Studies on marijuana and crash risk showed “reduced risk estimate or no risk associated with marijuana use” when they controlled for age.

As a side note, it should be mentioned that other claims drug war apologists make in favor of prohibition also don’t hold water. For example, D’Souza asserts: “It’s pretty clear: states that have legalized [marijuana] for recreational or medical have much higher rates of cannabis use among their youth than states that haven’t.”

This statement is patently false. Colorado, for example, saw a 12% drop in youth marijuana use in the years following legalization according to data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health. A 2015 study in The Lancet found that the 21 states with medical marijuana show equal or lower youth use rates compared to states without it.

All that aside, let’s grant the claim that taxing and regulating marijuana for adult use does in fact increase rates of impaired driving. Does this mean we should keep it illegal? The answer is no, given how much more harmful prohibition is than responsible regulation.

According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, cartels in Mexico make $6.63 billion just from marijuana sales to the U.S. Instead of going to violent criminal organizations, tax-free, this money could be sustaining jobs in the U.S. and the revenue could be funding schools like it does in Colorado.

Instead, at a time when one third of murders go unsolved in the U.S., according to NPR, the U.S. spends $8.7 billion per year enforcing marijuana laws, according to Harvard Economist Jeffrey Miron. 88% of those arrests are for possession only.

Moreover, these marijuana laws are not enforced equally: despite using marijuana at the same rates as white people, Black people are four times more likely to be arrested for it. An ACLU study found that although Black people make up just 15% of people who use drugs, they account for 37% of those arrested, 59% of those convicted, and 74% of those sentenced to prison for nonviolent drug offenses.

Professor D’Souza’s argument may have some weight to it, depending on what the data from other states show. It is not unreasonable to think that once marijuana becomes more accessible, more people will use it. Certainly, some of those people will use it irresponsibly and threaten public safety by driving under the influence. But there are ways to address this problem that don’t involve disproportionately arresting people of color and branding them with a criminal record that will prevent them from obtaining employment, housing, and even financial aid for education for the rest of their lives. Presumably, rates of drunk driving rose after the repeal of Prohibition in the 1930s, but does anyone really want to return to the days of Al Capone? Probably not.

To minimize the risk of impaired driving, the U.S. should divert some of the tax revenue it will receive from taxing and regulating marijuana to education, prevention, and treatment. It could fund campaigns against impaired driving – just as it does with drunk driving. Certainly, this world is better than the one in which 100,000 people have died at the hands of senseless violence in Mexico because we keep funding the cartels that inflict it.

Graphic by Joseph Valdez YH Staff 68 – The Yale Herald

Udder madness

by Nicole Mo YH Staff & Robert Newhouse YH Staff

I

have no proven calcium deficiency. I’ve never broken a bone, and when I think of drinking a tall glass of ice cold milk, I feel the strong urge to vomit in my backpack. When I grew up in Shanghai, my mom made me drink milk every day. Not regular milk, which is bad enough. But bagged milk. Let’s just pause for a moment and think about that. Milk. In bags. One fateful day my mom handed me a bag of milk and like the dutiful daughter I used to be, I stuck a straw in the top and took a tentative sip. And then a thick, alien membrane coated my entire throat. I threw up. A lot. I still have nightmares about it, honestly. And since that day, I have been resolute in my decision: milk is for babies.

And dumb-ass adults.

Don’t get me wrong—I love dairy.

I consume a wide and beautiful variety of dairy products at each meal.

My diet depends on cheese to the extent where I lay awake at night and worry about becoming lactose intolerant. I’ve heard that 90% of

Asians eventually develop some sort of lactose intolerance, and I’m terrified that I’ll be one of them. Cheese is my life. I can’t be funny about cheese. Humor is used to resolve conflict, and I have no conflict with cheese. But my feelings do not extend to the liquid side of the dairy family. It is a gross perversion of nature for grown adults to drink the breast milk of cows. Not to mention that enslaving dairy cows’ mammary glands to quench our thirst for a liquid that could at best be described as “not spoiled” is barbarism at its very best. You can take back your milkshakes, almond, soy, 2%, and skim. Take back your carcinogens, your lattés, your suspensions of fat particles in water. I want no part of this collective colloidal insanity. Got milk? Get the fuck out.

- Nicole Mo

W

hen I was younger, I used to take eggs from the fridge. I would hold them in my hands, watch, and wait. They never became chickens, which made me sad, but eventually happy, because it set me down the path of discovering milk.

The milk was always above the eggs in the fridge, so when I realized that eggs didn’t work the way I thought they would, I made a choice.

I reached for the carton. Rather, I asked my mom if I could try the mysterious liquid of the refrigerator’s third floor. I was five. I curious. And I was thirsty. And so I drank that 2% like my life depended on it.

By ten, I had made a fateful transition. Relegating watery 2% to the past, I made the transition to Whole.

And boy did it complete me! But this wasn’t to last. After three years of blissful milk-consumption, I read an article on Aol.com that said milk could be a carcinogen. I didn’t want to get cancer and die, so I did the drastic: I stopped drinking milk.

It was only five years later, and not necessarily in my correct mind, but oh was it my correct one, that I caved—not because I was any less scared of cancer; I just missed my milk that much.

You see, I’ve never broken a bone.

I’ve never broken a bone, and, for years, I drank at least a tall glass of ice cold milk with every meal. Is this just a coincidence? I don’t think so.

Spanning not only cultures, but also species, milk unites the creatures of the earth. As an infant, milk is the crucial source of calcium that sculpts the skeleton. As a college student, milk is the crucial source of moisture that makes Oreos taste much better.

Milk, in all its forms, is not simply delicious. It is necessary.

Milk is not just a delicious, refreshing and nutritional beverage. It is also a colloidal-suspension, which sounds cool.

- Robert Newhouse

Graphic by Haewon Ma YH Staff Apr. 14, 2017 – 97

FEATURES

Colleges upon a hill Take a look at the future residents of Franklin and Murray Colleges with Lydia Buonomano.

* T

hey came with wheelbarrows and surrounded the cars. You remember. I think this was mostly to impress our parents; mine certainly fell for the cheerful efficiency, the explicit symbolism of the process.

My mother was grateful because handing me off from one family into another meant that she could leave me in a strange place without guilt. But of course, the traditions of Move-in Day charmed me too, striking a calculated balance between whimsical and earnest, sappy and sincere. Over the summer, I had already started working on falling in love with Davenport, and I had read and reread Yale’s official statement about the residential college system: “[The colleges] do much to foster spirit, allegiance, and a sense of community...[they offer] students a familiar, comfortable living environment, personal interaction with faculty members and administrators, and exciting opportunities for academic and extracurricular exploration.” In a word, your college is intended to be a home within a home.

Yet, this year, in response to the addition of Pauli Murray and Benjamin Franklin colleges, over four hundred students chose to transfer out of the communities in which they have been living and will soon be inhabiting two entirely new social spaces.

Resolutely entrenched in Davenport culture myself, I watched names flood the first housing lottery with passive disbelief. After all, how many people could be lured into uprooting by the promise of a stand-alone single? (The first set of rumors had begun to circulate and this was one of the things we collectively presumed: transfer students wanted big rooms and access to Science Hill.) It was not until after the completion of the third housing lottery in which Franklin and Murray finalized their membership that I began to

10 8 – The Yale Herald

recognize I had been oversimplifying, or perhaps even misidentifying, the motives driving many students to bid for a spot in the new colleges.

A brief conversation with a proud Franklinite set me right. If I had not understood the willingness to abandon one kind of social circle, it is because I had not realized that a large number of students were not migrating in isolation, but rather in the context of pre-established social networks that had formerly persisted outside of the residential college structure.

No doubt, the addition of Franklin and Murray provided a virtually unprecedented opportunity for social groups divided across colleges to bring members together in a common living space. Even so, I was interested to know what kinds of relationships could trump the familiarity that usually arises from living in such close proximity in one’s first college. I contacted the Head of Benjamin Franklin, Charles Bailyn, and outlined my hunch. Although he did not have access to statistical demographics, Professor Bailyn confirmed that he had personally noticed some trends in the types of students applying for transfer: “There certainly does seem to be overrepresentation of both international and first gen students...I would hypothesize that the opportunity to create rooming groups that cross college lines has brought in categories of students with strong internal bonding. As another example— we also seem to have a lot of varsity athletes.”

Contained within this rather innocuous observation is an acknowledgement of the impact of populating two entire residential colleges by asking for volunteers. The characteristics of any self-selected group are bound to deviate from the average of the whole. In this case, it is worth questioning whether Franklin and Murray will truly represent, for the next few years at least,

“a microcosm of the larger student population,” as each residential college is intended to. Casey Ramsey, a rising sophomore who has transferred into Pauli Murray says, “I’ve heard the new colleges called the YPBM colleges, the FSY colleges, the QB colleges. I am not in YPMB, but I did do FSY and I did do Questbridge. We all just kind of migrated together.” Ramsey is referring to the Yale Precision Marching Band (YPMB), the Freshman Scholars at Yale summer program (FSY) and the QuestBridge scholars program (QB), each of which, he says, is seeing significant representation in the makeup of the new colleges. Another student confirms that many athletes are moving along with their teams in order to coordinate practices and workouts. Such testimonies certainly seem to indicate explicit demographic trends in the populations of the new colleges.

Still, it will hardly be cause for complaint if the unusual circumstances of this year further the cohesion of certain social networks, such as sports teams and programs like QuestBridge and FSY, which provide companionship and support for affiliated members. A demographic composition that sacrifices some measure of diversity surely has value if it advances solidarity at the same time.

For their part, the transfer students I spoke to declared universally positive expectations for the future of the new colleges and the communities that are already beginning to form around them. For sophomore Yannis Messaoui, former resident of Jonathan Edwards and future resident of Pauli Murray, “It’s exciting to be at a point where we are going to see Yale evolve.” He went on to discuss the impact he and his classmates hope to have on generations to come. “There are opportunities to make the new colleges a home.

And that’s cool. I think I’m gonna be much more

involved in Pauli Murray life than JE life.” Current Davenport freshman Marie Gaye, who will move into Pauli Murray in the fall, agrees that the chance to build traditions from the ground up is exciting. “A lot of other colleges have an established culture that we are just immersed into, and there isn’t so much you can do. So I’m really grateful for how Head Lu and Dean Rosas are super open and receptive to students’ suggestions and are really committed to building the best residential college.”

Over the weekend of April 8th, future residents of Franklin and Murray gathered for a retreat at Bridgeport Adventure Park. Intended to spark and strengthen enduring bonds, the itinerary included ziplining, mingling, and inventing college cheers.

(I got this gem of a preview: “Frank you! Frank you! Go fly a kite!”) The trip seemed to confirm the positive social dynamics that members of the new colleges had been expecting. “It kind of felt like the cliché Yale from the brochure, like ‘yay we are all gonna go on trips together, we’re gonna be friends,’” Messaoui said. Ramsey painted the trip as an important milestone, mentioning that he had finally overcome his fear of heights, which had prevented him from participating in a similar ziplining activity during FSY. Afterwards, he and other members of Murray College deliberated about the best way to implement a Big Sib

program. “We talked about doing it for older students as well... sophomores maybe having junior big sibs,” he told me. “I’m looking forward to getting that started.”

Again, many of the students I spoke with were anticipating that a shared culture would arise much more naturally in their new homes as a function of the self-selection process that had brought the communities together. Sidney Saint-Hilaire, a current freshman transferring to Franklin, observed, “My reasons for transferring were mainly because I wanted the opportunity to re-form a closer connection with a group of people. I felt like I wasn’t very close at all with the people I’m with in my current college... The group of friends I’m transferring with aren’t necessarily close, but we all enjoy each other’s company and definitely see this as a long term idea.”

Marie Gaye also transferred along with a network of friends she had met outside of her first residential college and looks forward to furthering close relationships with them in the years to come. She reveals that the demographic composition of her community is a large consideration for her. “There really isn’t that much diversity in some residential colleges, which definitely plays a hand in the culture...one of my favorite aspects [of transferring] is that my residential college affiliation honors a Black woman.”

For Casey Ramsey, the prevalence of students involved in Questbridge and FSY in the new colleges means that he will be transferring into an immediately comfortable social space. Throughout our interaction, he expressed excitement at the prospect of living beside students with whom he has already established durable bonds. “Looking back it was almost more my doing than anyone else’s doing that I didn’t become as close with the people in my college. I wasn’t really ever available to become friends with them.”

Throughout his freshman year, Ramsey devoted the majority of his social energy to maintaining the relationships he had built during his time as a Freshman Scholar at Yale. “Now we’ve come together. We are back together. We’ve come back together after being separated into different colleges freshman year. We are gonna try to make it really like a family.” And if they are a family that has sought each other out, so much the better.

Ramsey and four hundred of his classmates have carved out their home-within-a-home at Yale, not by submitting to the agency of the college assignment system, but by claiming their own.

Graphics by Joseph Valdez YH Staff Apr. 14, 2017 – 911

COVER

18 _ The Yale Herald

BRAZOS FUERTES Photos from La Habana

by Nika Zarazvand

I

remember hearing on the morning news about Cuban musicians performing next to the security line at LAX, celebrating the first direct flights from the U.S. to Cuba. I was able to travel to La Habana this spring break because the Obama administration lifted travel restrictions to Cuba that had been in place for 50 years. I rediscovered in La Habana what I loved most about my home in Iran: a mixture of pride, humility, and resilience in a people starved by shitty neocolonialist sanctions. I got lost in the streets, missed a couple buses, and took a few portraits in between that captured paradoxes that are difficult to imagine fitting in one frame.

I. BRAZOS FUERTES. A group of retired professional boxers train young Cuban boys in an abandoned back alley turned boxing ring.

Every Wednesday after school, they gather inside and gear up before the matches begin at 5:30. The youngest generation of Cubans will only learn about the country’s fight for liberation from their elders. In 1989, the fall of the Soviet Bloc collapsed the Cuban economy, exacerbating the effects of the existing U.S. embargo. Today, long lines form outside of small supermarkets that run out of products by midday. The majority of capital circulates among the growing number of Cubans in service jobs catering to tourists. The Castros fought against US neoliberalism for over a century, but it will still be a part of these boys’ lives. Hotels will inevitably line the Malecón and the tourism industry will continue to boom. Old 1952 Chevys will be replaced with cleaner cars and cleaner air. I like to think that despite it all, they will already have their fists up, ready to protect what’s theirs.

Apr. 14, 2017 _11 19

II. PUERTAS ABIERTAS. The rusted fan hasn’t been used in ages and probably doesn’t work, so the door will do. Habana Vieja is full of open doors and open windows. Air flows through the room and so does the bustle of the alleyway. I linger outside the door, trying to decide whether I had the right to ask if I could enter. It’s her space. Even in this photo, the door frames the picture; I am clearly outside. She’s home from work, exhausted, and has stripped down to a cool tank. When I ask her if I can take a picture, she barely moves. She remains seated, but looks right into the lens, communicating the laid-back vibe in La Habana that I’ve fallen in love with. She offers the camera only that which she can give.

V. LA PELUQUERÍA. A boy is getting a haircut in a 30 sq. ft. barber shop in an alleyway in La Habana Vieja. He refused to smile.

III. OJOS ABIERTOS. On my last day in Cuba, I ventured off on my own, wandering through el Barrio Chino. Whenever I was catcalled, I used the opportunity to strike up a conversation about the Chinese community that once owned the restaurants in the area. I approached these three hip tenants to ask whether they knew of any Chinese stores. The oldest, largest, and most widespread distribution of Asian immigrants in Latin America, and in Cuba, were the Chinese, who had been contracted to labor on plantations. Chinatown represented a sense of nostalgia and community for unfree workers who formed ethnic neighborhoods as a means of surviving racial harassment. Chinese food cooked with Cuban ingredients once articulated tensions between identity vectors of “home” and “diaspora” in the lives of workers and immigrants in La Habana.

But Barrio Chino looks very different today. Above the tall door frame of this entry is a sign with Chinese characters that none of the three tenants sitting below it can read.

VI. ROJA VIEJA. A woman in red sits on a short stool in an alleyway in Habana Vieja, a cigar clenched between her purple lips. When I ask if I can take her portrait, she beckons me closer.

Her dress resembles that of a flamenco dancer, most likely inspired by the Spanish colonial influences remaining in this part of town. Wars have been fought over her body: black bodies toiling in the Cuban sun, turning sweat into smoke, smoke blown from white lips savoring sun-grown tobacco leaves. The cigar distorts her femininity by evoking images of powerful men like JFK, or Fidel. She’s reclaimed commodities drenched in blood and violence, wearing them on her body like her own skin.

IV. TECHOS AZULES. Two construction workers take a break on a rooftop, peering out over the Vedado district of La Habana.

12 20 _ The Yale Herald

VII. ROSADO. A woman in La Habana Vieja sits on a stool outside her home. It is unclear whether the dog is her puppy or a stray.

IX. HERMANAS. Little pink nails juxtaposed against concrete battle wounds. Ominous alleyways and freshly ironed shirts. After I take the photo, papá offers up a whole bunch of tiny, sweet bananas as an afternoon snack for his girls.

Behind dirty desks sits a population that is 99.8 percent literate—a higher literacy rate than that of the U.S., where 32 million cannot read. These girls can attend rigorous medical schools for free, even though the country lacks potable water and a free Internet. As doctors, they would help ensure that Cubans continue to have the same life expectancy as Americans, despite their country spending a fraction of what the U.S. spends on health care. In more ways than one, Cubans have exceeded the world power that starved them of food and medicine.

XI. LAS MUÑECAS. This little room is both a business and home.

By day, hand-made dolls, available for purchase, line the cement rim of the home’s opening, and by the afternoon the little girl returns from school, ready to help out. A stray dog pauses in the middle of the frame. His gaze shifts the portrait’s balance towards the right, and changes its texture, the uneven wall contrasting with his smooth coat. So much coexists in every frame in Cuba, but not with ease. The girl’s father is tense, and perhaps worried about supporting his baby. He looks at the camera with an air of suspicion, his forearm placed protectively between the lens and his family.

VIII. ESCONDIDILLAS. A little girl shows her puppy off to tourists in La Habana Vieja.

THESE GIRLS CAN ATTEND RIGOROUS MEDICAL SCHOOLS FOR FREE, EVEN THOUGH THE COUNTRY LACKS POTABLE WATER AND A FREE INTERNET.

X. ARCOS Y CARCACHA. La Habana after showers at sunset.

XII. CARNE. A butcher shop sells fresh meats. He’s not visible, but the butcher lingers in the shadows.

Apr. 14, 2017 _13 21

FEATURES

Rock, river, road Walk the path of East Rock Park’s history with Theo Kuhn.

*

F

rom East Rock, on the northern edge of New Haven, Connecticut, the Mill River shines like snakeskin beneath a knot of overpasses. The river skirts the curved southern border of East Rock Park, a crescent of green on the frontier of suburb and city, before venturing out to disappear underneath a scrum of concrete and brick. The narrow strip of water heads straight for the harbor, splitting near its terminus to make way for Ball Island, a man-made industrial rectangle.

The Mill River is just one of many byways that streak across the unremarkable industrial corridor between New Haven and Fair Haven. Roughly four lanes wide, the river blends right in with I-91, its various on and off ramps, the old freight train tracks, and the local roads that span the corridor in a twisted cord. Nine bridges cross the Mill River in its one-mile journey from East Rock to the harbor. The roar of tires on pavement waxes and wanes with rush hour, hiding the river in cacophonous shadow.

In the 1890s, only one bridge, a humble wooden span, hopped the river. Back then the river dominated the view from East Rock, executing wide swooping turns across a broad marshy basin, a scattering of wooden houses perched on either bank. What is now a mile of river between East Rock and the harbor was probably more like three, because the river, as is its natural tendency upon reaching the end of its journey to the sea, was able to spread itself into luxuriant meanders, taking full advantage of the broad basin it had carved for itself over the millennia. A century and a half later, the river has been rechanneled to take up the least space possible, running in a straight shot to the harbor, and the salt marsh has been filled in to support sprawling brick factories that sit where

14 10 – The Yale Herald

the tide once nosed its way upriver. Some have been abandoned, decaying remnants of industrial bloom, leaking liabilities of PCBs and asbestos.

Yet amid the plains of grey, the river retains its riparian fringe of greenery, and is hemmed by walls of phragmites, oak and willow. A float down the river reveals a waterway not without nature, hidden from human visitors by the freeways and embankments of humanity itself. No one paddles this stretch of the Mill River, nor walks along its shores. It is the fate of many urban waterways to be thus ghettoized and then forgotten, left to become wild again in the least scenic corridors of the concrete jungle. Rivers like this might be classified by the city as drainage ditches, and may be considered lost causes in the battle for conservation, casualties of urban development—yet they remain more wild, or at least less familiar with human contact, than the protected curves of waterways within well-traveled city parks.

The lower Mill River was sacrificed for the upper. In the 1880s, the city of New Haven forced Milton J. Stewart, owner of East Rock and the portion of the Mill River that traces the foot of the cliff, to sell his land; the city was intent on making a park. With the $13,000 that he received for the land, Stewart built twelve identical wooden houses in the Mill River valley further downstream—where the freeway passes today—which came to be known as the Dirty Dozen for their use of the river as a sewage system. The Dirty Dozen was the first finger of development into the Mill River salt marsh, a harbinger of the restructuring forces that would fill the marsh and confine the river’s last mile. Though these forces would have eventually transformed the lower valley regardless—flat and with flowing water, it was destined

for industry—the Dirty Dozen would not have provided the breach had the city not moved to protect the more picturesque stretch of river upstream.

In the 1960s, the city changed its mind. A proposed I-91 connector cutting across the base of East Rock would have relegated the river to a ditch beneath the thruway, erasing the last stretch of river that remained as nature drew it—upstream from the park the river is dammed, and downstream from the park, parkway. Sensing the existential threat, a coalition of locals and students fought the plan back. It was dropped quietly a decade later.

The city’s 1880s purchase preserved the physical space of East Rock and the upper Mill River for posterity, but it was the beginning of the end for the human landscape of old. Milton J. Stewart was the last lord of a realm for outlaws and eccentrics, misanthropes and adventurers—the rock’s barren heights more Wild West than staid New England. The first known inhabitant of the rock was a drifter who spoke to nary a soul, his body found frozen in his shack one brutal winter. A Mr. and Mrs. Smith, who built themselves a life in a stone house near the summit, were murdered upon the rock for reasons unknown. Another squatter, Hubbell, descended from the heights on occasion to drive his goat team through the city streets, offering firewood. Milton J. Stewart built a main house, outbuildings, an observation tower perched on the cliff’s edge, and a fifty-foot oystering steamboat, three hundred feet above the harbor. Had all the world’s ice melted at once, the sea would not have risen high enough to lift his boat from its perch. Upon hearing of the plan to turn his kingdom into a park, Stewart closed his road to visitors, attacking those who tried to enter.

But the rising tide of development would lift the rock as precious green ground, and the city would have its way.

The realm of Stewart became the canvas of Donald G. Mitchell, the landscaper commissioned by the city to design the park in 1882.

Mitchell recognized the innate appeal of the land. Overwrought ornamentation would only distract from the ancient groves of white pine, the timeworn cliff, scar of tectonic revolution, the gentle curve of river and the river’s bank studded with old stone. But he sought for the natural experience of the parkgoer to be, as he puts it, “artfully directed”. Gone was Stewart’s steep, harrowing road that went straight up the gorge and

into the heights of stunted oak, where outcasts howled and murderers prowled the New Haven imagination. In its place was the long, winding carriage road, carefully graded at one step up for every twenty paces forward, offering curated views of grassy fen and winding stream, with sturdy retaining walls just low enough to afford a view and just high enough to ensure safe passage. In was the well-trodden footpath, the miniature dairy farm, and the Swiss cottage, nestled in a planted grove.

There’s a footbridge I like to sit on over the Mill River, in the northwest corner of the park, a little downriver from the Whitney Dam. The bridge is one of a few designs proposed by Mitchell, sketched

in the corners of his map of the park, showing the landscapers how each type might ideally complete the natural scene presented by that particular bend in the river. If you look downstream from the bridge, the cliff rises like a proud Roman brow to your left, glowing rust red above the treetops, and you see only trees, and rock and river; it’s a perfect landscape painting. A fallen tree lies in the river there, and the water makes little dimples as it flows around the tree, away from you. And you can hear the chuckle of the stream behind you, and the birds in the trees. And the freeway roaring downstream.

Graphics by Haewon Ma YH Staff Apr. 14, 2017 – 15 11

CULTURE

CULTURE

Bully pulpits Sharper tongues, sharper teeth, & an evolved Late Night

by Peter Rothpletz

J

ohnny Carson and Walter Cronkite wouldn’t care for Jon Stewart. Or perhaps they would. He is, after all, an American icon—a man whose talent and instincts fundamentally changed our view of both comedy and the news. And even now that he’s retired and left the Big Apple for rural New Jersey, his legacy continues to haunt the airwaves.

Walk into any dining hall or library on campus, and you’ll be greeted by a familiar sight: Yalies, leaning forward into their laptops, engrossed in a recent episode of Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert, Trevor Noah, or John Oliver.

Between the network and cable channels, we’re delivered new content every night of the week. And, if we miss it, the highlights will have gone viral on YouTube by the next morning.

What you won’t see, though, is much love for the news; talking heads and scrolling text are rare breeds. Some channels are deemed too fettered with bias. Others are drowned out by their own 24 hour coverage. And the older, “Big Three” juggernauts—ABC, NBC, and CBS—rarely offer broadcasts that can be absorbed in quick, eight-minute bursts. So, instead, Yalies (and college students more generally) turn to the satirists.

Perhaps this is merely the “ghost” of Jon Stewart. Many of us came of age during the height of The Daily Show, when a man started each evening by speaking truth to power and ended it with a “moment of zen.” It wasn’t just another news parody. He took the best elements of Carson and Cronkite and fashioned a style all his own. Every playful, throwaway jab at Arby’s hamburgers was matched with an aggressive questioning of Judith Miller or Jim Cramer. He kept his audiences laughing and informed.

And now that he’s gone, Americans still clamour for his particular brand of activist humor.

You can see it in the popularity of Stewart’s successor, Trevor Noah, or in that of former contributors to his program who have gone off to helm shows of their own on TBS and HBO. They attempted to carry on his tradition of journalistic satire, and, over the last few years, they’ve done well. Between The Daily Show, Full Frontal, and Last Week Tonight, Yalies have watched full episodes dedicated to net neutrality, Brexit, capital punishment, rape kit backlogs, the

Syrian refugee crisis, televangelism, and even a controversial legal process called civil asset forfeiture.

What’s noteworthy, though, is while Stewart developed a whole new generation of comedians, he didn’t necessarily transform Late Night TV—or, more accurately, he didn’t transform it alone.

Despite the success of The Daily Show and its subsequent spin-offs, the primetime lineup at the “Big Three” has largely stuck to a longtime Cronkite/ Carson divide. Hard, substantive newscasts presented by a lone anchor air each night at 6:30 p.m. Five hours later, a light, non-partisan ode to pop culture lulls Americans to sleep.

This was the rule, as recently as five months ago. Back then, the “Jimmys”—Fallon and Kimmel—reigned supreme. Every show saw the pair rubbing elbows with teen heartthrobs, pumping out half a dozen viral videos, and appearing all but invincible in the Nielsen index. That’s not the case anymore.

Old, traditional Late Night has gone political, dragged (in no small part) by the one Daily Show alum on the “Big Three,” Stephen Colbert.

Once deemed an eternal bronze medalist, the CBS frontman has just finished 10 straight weeks on top of the ratings dogpile thanks to (and notably not in spite of) his barbed satire. The Jimmys, for their part, have been taking notes.

Opening monologues that were once reserved for mild, observational comedy are now dedicated to the headlines out of Washington. Newsmen like Jake Tapper and Charlie Rose have become not uncommon guests on couches that once seated Hollywood starlets. And, most importantly, all of this has been occurring against a backdrop of a fading Cronkite/Carson line.

Jon Stewart may have started the evolution of Late Night, but credit for finishing the job should go someone else: Donald Trump. He’s a one-man goldmine for comedic fodder: bombastic, provocative, and prone to unleashing weapons-grade oddities that open him up to ridicule. These same factors make him a difficult subject for traditional journalists. While reporters and anchors have to concern themselves with objectivity, satirists can speak without a filter.

Graphic by Haewon Ma YH Staff 18 _ The Yale Herald 16

Now, make no mistake, mocking POTUS isn’t a new phenomenon. George W. Bush, DC ’68, and his administration served as the butt of many Late Night jokes.

Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton were each hit with their fair share too. However, there’s been an unmistakable escalation over the last few months. The humor is biting. The satire is aggressive. And, if ratings predict anything, it’s only going to intensify.

No one at Yale would argue that Colbert or Bee or Oliver should stop what they’re doing. But, together, they comprise a tendency that’s troubling. What’s the endgame in an environment where the the cross pollination between entertainment and hard news is all encompassing?

Are Yalies—and, by extension, Americans—degrading the value of our news consumption by electing satirists to be our primary (or only) source of information?

Or, quite the contrary, are efforts to make the Washington circuit more palatable a significant, positive good?

After all, more people than ever have an interest in the happenings of their government.

Perhaps the jury is still out. One thing is for certain, though: if so many of the headlines we see are selected because they’re inherently grounded in absurdity or comedic value, the conversations we have on campus will be dominated by the same elements. Trump is, ostensibly, a satirist’s dream, and his administration is certainly more unusual than most. What does it say

about Yalies, though, if we can talk with significant authority about Ivanka and Nordstroms or the way our President pronounces “China”… but we can’t speak decisively about his plans to change the tax code or how he’s restructuring the EPA?

The president behind the paintings

by Fiona Drenttel

L

ast week, a friend of mine gave me a book of George W. Bush’s, DC ’68, newest paintings. The book, titled Portraits of Courage, (192 pages, $18, and a #1 New York Times bestseller) contains a series of portraits and stories of U.S. veterans who have served since 9/11. Bush’s foray into the art world has been one of my favorite topics of conversation for a while, and this new book captures the unusual evolution of his limited artistic skill.

Bush’s status as a painter was first revealed in 2013, when a Romanian hacker known as “Guccifer” broke into various email and social media accounts belonging to the Bush family and leaked images of his paintings to the public. Most of the images released showed fairly rudimentary, Bob Ross-inspired paintings of landscapes and dogs. Included in this group, however, were two self-portraits of Bush in the semi-nude. In both paintings—one set in the shower, and the other in the bathtub—his worn, orange body appears timid, unsure of its surroundings. These paintings, along with the rest of his earliest publicized art, carry a clear sense of discomfort—it’s easy to imagine Bush fumbling with his brush as he worked.

But Bush’s style has changed significantly since 2013.

In the portraits published in his newest book, his strokes are bolder, his composition clearer, his use of color more commanding. Some of his paintings call to mind the work of artist Alice Neel but, given that they are directly based on photographs, lack the depth of her creative thought.

Others look like a distant, misinterpreted strain of outsider art. But essentially all reviews of Bush’s art have been unanimous in their criticisms: the paintings are bad. In an article for Salon back in 2013, Travis Diehl wrote, “Talent isn’t at issue here. Divine or profane, his is painting… imbued with an otherworldly ambiguity through the botched certainty of its execution.”

His talent may be negligible, but in no way does that diminish the paintings’ allure. They’re amateurish, yet bold; stilted, yet full of character. But it’s obvious that what makes them interesting is the fact that he made them:

it’s impossible to separate the man from the work. Bush ensures this by politicizing much of the art that he makes— painting world leaders, fellow politicians, and now veterans.

I find it difficult to look at his paintings and not ask: what is his motive? It seems impossible that our ex-commanderin-chief does not have ulterior motives.

Bush is certainly not the first person in a position of power to try his hand at art. Eisenhower and Carter both dabbled in painting. Hitler famously tried, and failed, to launch an art career. There is even an artist in the White House as we speak: Karen Pence, our Second Lady, has been selling her watercolors of horses at local art fairs for years. But Bush stands apart in his artistic endeavor, taking it to another level by explicitly placing himself in the spotlight. Bush intends to donate the profits from the paintings and book to the Bush Institute’s Military Service Initiative, which helps veterans readjust to civilian life. This project is admirable, but it does little to defray the human cost of the war that he himself initiated. While Bush seems to atone for his political mistakes from his presidency, the paintings fail to compensate for his past actions.

Portraits of Courage contains 98 portraits of veterans. Of the veterans

that Bush chose to paint, however, only six are people of color and only five are women. These numbers don’t represent the U.S. military’s current demographics, but they do, it seems, represent Bush’s own conception of the military.

Maybe this is the true pitfall of Bush’s newfound pastime: even in a discipline that he is just beginning to learn, his own political shortcomings are still present, just translated into a different form. Bush the artist and Bush the politician have a lot in common—neither is very good at his job.

SOURCE: ewedit.wordpress.com

Apr. 14, 2017 _ 19 17

REVIEWS

REVIEWS Faux friends

by Emma Keyes

SOURCE: itpworld.wordpress.com

T

he story of the troubled artist is nothing new. Vincent Van Gogh cut his own ear off, after all, and Edgar Allen Poe died destitute in the streets of Baltimore. Paul Cézanne was no exception to the trope. Cézanne et Moi, directed by Danièle Thompson, paints a searing, although sometimes disappointing portrait of the friendship between the eponymous artist and writer Emile Zola, which lasted for much of their lives but ultimately ended in heartbreak.

Cézanne et Moi uses the conversation that definitively ends Cezanne and Zola’s friendship as a backbone for the narrative structure of the film. In some ways, I was reminded of the musical Merrily We Roll Along while watching this film. Both pieces play a similar narrative game that starts with the dissolution of a friendship and works backwards. Merrily We Roll Along progressively rewinds back to the very beginning, to the moment the three main characters meet. Instead of rewinding, the film intercuts this crucial conversation between flashbacks to their initial meeting and progressive flash-forwards, until the narrative catches up to said conversation and eventually moves past it. This construction mostly works, although it does have the effect of occasionally choppy pacing as we jump across large periods of time in their lives.

When done right, heartbreak hurts to watch, and this film can be gut-wrenching. The convincing portrait of a tenuous and ill-fated friendship is the film’s true strength. The pain shared by Cézanne (Guillaume Gallienne) and Zola (Guillaume Canet) is palpable. In the first scene of the movie, Cézanne and Zola see each other for the first time in two years (although the audience doesn’t know the context) and immediately Gallienne and Canet reveal, in the hesitation on their faces, the tension radiating from their eyes, and their stiff body movements, the extensive and painful history between the two men. That moment best encapsulates the tension that this film revolves around: that of a friendship between two people so constantly threatened by each other that the only way of escape guarantees mutually assured destruction.

A lovely moment of circularity reveals itself at the end of the film. Cézanne brings a woman named Alexandrine (although she goes by Gabrielle) to the bar to meet his friends, and Zola falls in love with her nearly the minute he sees her. After a falling out over her, Cézanne quietly delivers a line that will come to haunt both of them: “In love, you forgive betrayal. With friendship, it’s harder.” Flash forward some thirty-or-so years and a perceived betrayal of a different kind ultimately ends their friendship. Again, Zola is cast in the role of the betrayer and Cézanne in the role of the betrayed, but the film also highlights Cézanne’s tendency to be overly sensitive, though he’ll never openly admit it. The situation cannot be read as an instance of miscommunication, but instead as an instance of willful misunderstanding, one that ultimately comes down on Cézanne’s shoulders alone. There’s a reason this film is titled Cézanne et Moi and not Zola et Moi or Cézanne et Zola. Cézanne plays the role of the catalyst in everything.

Cézanne was an impossible man to get along with. The two people who loved him most, Zola and Hortense (the woman with whom he would have a child and eventually marry) barely knew him and often barely liked him. Although Cézanne’s general unfriendliness shines through clearly, Thompson fails to critically look at Cézanne’s blatant misogyny and disregard for the people around him. He strings his mistress along for years before he eventually marries her. According to this film, he was an alcoholic and possibly an abusive one, but the film treats that as a footnote and nothing more. By only examining the relationship between Zola and Cézanne, the picture drawn of the two men unsatisfactorily glosses over

20 _ The Yale Herald 18

their glaring personality flaws. Both men slept around with impunity, and while there could have been an interesting social critique of two of the most influential French figures of the nineteenth century, the troublesome aspects of both men go largely unexamined.

At times in the film, the plot is propelled by overly-convenient perchance situations.

Zola frequently just happens to overhear Cézanne saying something about him, or vice versa. Besides being probably unfactual (although this film is a biopic and not a documentary, so some wiggle room can be allowed on that front), those interactions cheapen the legitimate drama in the story of these two men. Using the plot mechanism of the overheard conversation isn’t just lazy—such moments actively jolted me out of the world of the film because they felt so untrue.

The final scene strikes a false note with its delivery. Cézanne and Zola no longer talk.

The friendship they once had no longer exists—Cézanne made sure of that. Nevertheless, there is no one in the world who Cézanne loves more than Zola, or at least that is what the film wants us to believe. Their fraught relationship was always going to veer into tragedy, and so it does. But fast-forward past the fateful conversation around which the film revolves to 1899, when Zola arrives in Aix-en-Provence—the hometown of both men—where Cézanne still lives in near reclusion. For a moment, we think that this is it: the moment of reconciliation. Instead, we get another cheap eavesdropping situation where Cézanne hears Zola trash-talking him to the mayor and decides not to contact him after all. This moment almost certainly never happened, as there is no record of any contact between the two men after 1888. The film ends with Cézanne walking through the hills in despair, after which title cards informing viewers what happens to the two men materialize on top of a landscape that transforms from the actual scenery into the paintings that Cézanne made of the landscape. The whole thing feels overwrought and too neatly wrapped up. The movie takes us through nearly their entire lives; by the time it concludes, Cézanne and Zola don’t have much left to do before they die, and so the conclusion title cards feel even more unnecessary and silly than the end-credits-explanation trope usually does. The film would have been better served by an ending that embraced its own lack of resolution, since the real relationship between the two men ended in just that way.

Every landscape shot in this film is rendered beautifully. It may be a common standard that movies about artists have to have good cinematography and art direction, but Cézanne et Moi does not disappoint in that respect. Numerous scenes give us views worthy of Cézanne’s paintings themselves, which is certainly part of the point, since we so often see him painting in those very landscapes we are supposed to admire. The film feels much like a painting in that way. On the other hand, the smaller, more personal moments are a bit jarring in their cinematographic style because many of those shots are hand-held and shaky, but it’s a fitting contrast to the stable, picturesque panoramas of the French countryside.

The conflict between shots reflects the conflict between Cézanne’s messy and small personal life and the great works that he created.

Despite the problems of Cézanne et Moi, the film paints a compelling portrait of two interesting and complicated figures. By the nature of their personalities, Zola always comes off as the smaller presence in the room even though he finds more success artistically in his lifetime than Cézanne does. This film makes a case for the necessity of recognizing the value in other people. Great passion without humanity only ends in tragedy. Maybe that’s art, but is it worth it? This film tries to, but ultimately cannot answer that for us.

“Fireproof”

I

s it excessive to write 500 words about a cover of a One Direction song? Maybe, but since I have a friend who had to be physically restrained from buying a life size cutout of the blonde guy from the group, I think this is subdued by the standards of the fan fiction era. Besides, I’m not actually here for the once-ubiquitous British boy band—their positive contribution to my musical landscape is solely thanks to indie goddess Mitski’s recent cover of their 2014 “Fireproof,” and that is why I’m here.

The original “Fireproof” opens with a cute acoustic guitar riff that remains on loop as the classic boyband beat kicks in perkily. Cue members of the band, who take turns on lead vocals while remaining members “oh” and “ah” barbershopquartet style. The cymbals shimmer quietly alongside the slippery-smooth harmonies that insulate the chorus and the song plateaus, carrying on like this for another two minutes.

There is no climax, no explosion, no bang, no whimper: One Direction’s “Fireproof” is a sticky, pleasant song loyal to its name—entirely incapable of igniting a spark.

Mitski’s cover begins with a low electric guitar rapidly an

monotonously pulsing in play with a steady bass drum. It’s a dark-and-gritty foundation for the song, which has traded in its beachy pastel origins for a dystopian ember-red. New layers of the rhythm section erratically punctuate the first verse before piercing distortion catalyzes the chorus in an unbelievably satisfying release of instrumental tension. Mitski’s vocals are untouchable, maintaining a clarity in the grains of her lower register but emanating an unconventional strength in her lilting highs. A tidal wave of optimism, urgency, and lingering sadness is behind her voice in newly powerful lines like “Riding on the wind and I won’t give up.” It’s an invigorating and beautiful tragedy that Mitski paints with her vocals, and it’s not unique to this cover: look to her latest album, Puberty 2, for a gold mine of this mournfully galvanizing sound.

This sonic reconfiguration and dismantlement of boy band tropes does something that One Direction, in all their earnestness, couldn’t do: it makes the lyrics matter. Mitski replaces “I roll and I roll ‘til I’m out of luck” in the first verse with the “I roll and I roll ‘til I change my luck” that initially only ends the second verse—it’s also the resonating final line of Mitski’s

version, which cuts out the superfluous last chorus. Otherwise, though, she stays true to lyrics that were written to make romance out of the fire-retardant. (It’s like One Direction was making a PSA for fire safety, which is kinda endearing.) But in her hands, “Fireproof” is repurposed from a nonflammable love song to an insurgent expression of passion and longing.

Released exclusively on Bandcamp for their Our First 100 Days project, a collective album that uses proceeds to fund organizations tackling new challenges under the Trump presidency, Mitski’s “Fireproof” is a rallying cry that, despite its name, is fully capable of lighting a fire in (or under) all of us.

by Nicole Mo YH Staff

This week’s net flick: Frank

I

f our priorities are remotely similar then you should already be aware that Michael Fassbender’s birthday was a few weeks ago. As a huge fan of both Secret Ginger Mike and birthdays, I felt a powerful impulse to celebrate on that cold April 2. I was going to watch Assassins Creed because I don’t respect myself or my time as much as I’d like others to, but the only version I could find online was in Spanish with Chinese subtitles. I then searched Michael on Netflix and discovered to my great glee that Frank, the exceedingly strange Lenny Abrahamson film that I had been meaning to watch for a long time, was available. (Lenny Abrahamson followed up Frank with Room, a tone shift to say the least.)

And thank God it was. There was no better way to celebrate the newly minted quadragenarian that taking a mere 95 minutes out of my Monday night to watch as Jon (a pitch perfect Domhnall Gleeson) immerses himself in the life of a

band—erm—headed by a man named Frank who is constantly ensconced in a giant paper-mache head. Jon begins the film a lowly office worker by day and struggling songwriter in his parents’ house by night, but he seizes the opportunity to live his dream when the Soronprfbs (Frank’s band) lose their keyboardist while on a tour stop in England. The band then heads to Ireland to record their album.

Though I came to this movie for the birthday boy, I stayed for the ensemble. Maggie Gyllenhaal plays Clara, a volatile, potentially sabotaging theremin player who immediately mistrusts Jon. Though she and Frank have an ambiguously sexual relationship, Clara resists the love interest role, striking the perfect balance between nurturing and infuriatingly turbulent. I was completely charmed, though, by Scoot McNairy, best known for his roles in Argo and 12 Years a Slave, as Don (who is maybe named for The Big Lebowski’s Donny). Don’s

struggle with mental illness and awe for Frank informs our initial reactions to the movie’s bizarre concept, and his tacit acceptance of and love for this wacky dude convince us to, like Jon, go along for the ride. The movie is, best of all, tight.

It wastes no time. The storytelling moves quickly without sacrificing character development, jokes, or even the music, which is kind of the secondary mystery of the movie (after the head, of course). When is it genius? When is it dreadful?

Who drives the band’s collective sound at any given moment?

The movie is odd, no doubt, but it is packed to the brim with heart, and a kind of reckless exuberance that makes the densely packed 95 minutes pass in a heartbeat. And my heart was beating fast. Because of Michael Fassbender.

by Emma Chanen YH Staff

Ghost in the Shell

I

t’s been awhile since I’ve felt this torn about a movie.

The original Ghost in the Shell (1995) ranks among my favorite movies of all time, and I’m an equally huge fan of the anime series; the first season of Stand Alone Complex, the series that followed the movie 7 years later, is a masterpiece of thoughtful science fiction and sharp visuals. I must admit that it was with my fond memories very much in mind that I sat down a few days ago to watch Ghost in the Shell, Rupert Sanders’ highly publicized live-action adaptation.

My first thought: the film looks great. It is stylistically and visually spectacular, at once capturing the clean precision of futuristic technology and the unruly growth of the metropolis.

I’m given to understand that the artists took inspiration from, of all things, the reams of Ghost in the Shell fan art online— and the result is magnificent. The flickering lights, giant holograms and ground-level sprawl of the futuristic city merge perfectly to create a palpably realistic environment that sets the stage beautifully for the action-packed plot. The shootouts, chases and death-defying leaps are well-choreographed and artistic, blending the human and the mechanical in ex-

actly the right way. When combined with Scarlett Johansson’s grace and technically masterful acting, the effect is visually breathtaking.

My second thought: The story is nothing like the Ghost in the Shell I once knew.

The original Ghost in the Shell was enthralling not only for its fantastic animation but also for a deep, ever-present philosophy inspired by The Ghost in the Machine, Koestler’s treatise on the duality of mind and body. The animated series explored the interaction of the mental and physical with the environment and society, touching on Cartesian dualism, cognitive science, memetics and solipsism. It was thoughtful, and at times intellectually dark: the ending to the original movie, wherein the survival of Motoko Kusanagi’s “ghost” (the universe’s slang for distinct human consciousness) is left ambiguous to the extreme, asked more questions than it truly answered—and that was a good thing. The new movie instead opts for a plot that, sans a few clever touches, is standard Hollywood fare, with an ending deliberately far more optimistic and formulaic than that of the original. The chases and

gunfights are excellently shot, but far too numerous and far too Americanized; there is very little left of the overarching philosophical questions that the original explored. That Mokoto Kusanagi is being played by Scarlett Johansson rather than any one of a number of talented Japanese actresses, for example the excellent Rinko Kikuchi (Pacific Rim, Norwegian Wood) is emblematic of the extent to which the movie has lost touch with its source material.

Despite Ghost in the Shell’s impressive visuals, I can’t help but feel that the series that inspired The Matrix deserved better. Perhaps it is unfair to search for the philosophical excellence of the original in the remake, but without its broad, very human questions, the movie reverts to a standard Hollywood sci-fi thriller. Watch it if you enjoy technology, gunfights, and spider-tanks—but if you wanted something with the depth and detail of the original, you’re better off just re-reading the 1989 manga.

by Sahaj Sankaran YH Staff

Apr. 14, 2017 _ 19 21

VOICES

Blind patriots

by Catherine Yang

W

hen my father was in elementary school in China, he and his classmates began each school day by chanting passages from Chairman Mao’s “little red book.” They stood in lines, reciting the words together before sitting down to learn math.

I was in sixth grade when I first heard this story, and all I had were questions. “Why didn’t anyone protest?” I demanded.

“How could all of China be so brainwashed?”

My dad shrugged. “We were all so young at the time,” he said. I scoffed and felt thankful to be living in America, land of the free and unindoctrinated.

The next morning in English class, I put my right hand over my heart and stood with my classmates to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. “I Pledge Allegiance to flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” I recited the Pledge nearly every day when I was in elementary and middle school.

I didn’t think about what the words meant, where they had come from, or why I was even saying them. At the time, the irony of my situation didn’t even cross my mind.

It wasn’t until my freshman/sophomore year of high school that I realized I was not required to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance—I never had been, and neither had any of my classmates. I also realized something terrible about myself: I was no different from the young Chinese students who grew up during the Cultural Revolution. My fealty to the United States had been bought with a candy incentive to memorize the pledge in second grade, and it had gone unquestioned for nearly seven years.

As high school continued, I sought to fill in the missing pieces of my crumbling worldview. The first time we read about the Opium War in ninth grade, I wanted to raise my hand to ask why we hadn’t been taught about this before. I wanted to know why our class constantly made jokes about how “dumb” China was—communism, dog-eating, refusing to open its ports for so long—but never talked about how the British had forcibly pumped drugs into China, knowing full-well that it would ruin lives. I wanted to ask why all of our history classes implied that any non-Western perspective we learned about was backwards or undeveloped—third to our first-world status. And for what? To reinforce the image of America the Great? I wanted to know how many other false viewpoints I had adsorbed. The more I looked for them, the worse the offenses became. Westernization was taught as an act of generosity, but “assimilation” was only a vocabulary term. European invasions of unwilling people were glossed over and glorified. American war atrocities were not spoken of. I learned U.S. history four times over and spent a total of maybe two months learning about nonEuropean cultures—and by the end of it, I knew virtually nothing about the world.

Through this, I realized that teaching ignorance by omission is as terrible as openly indoctrinating students with propaganda— worse, even. With a worldview crafted so narrowly, how could the average American public school student ever strip away their inherent sense of moral superiority to understand the importance of diversity and non-discrimination outside of the classroom?

This question has played a larger part in my college years than I would have liked. On a campus where people spend so much time agonizing over the voting choices of greater America and puzzling over our racist political system, we seem to forget that many of us were raised in an education system that taught us cutesy rhymes about the great Christopher Columbus, a man who led a genocide and inspired more. It is a system that is imbalanced in representation to the point of inaccuracy. It is the root of endemic American ignorance, which is bred and taught and retaught in classrooms where students stand obediently to recite the Pledge of Allegiance every morning before sitting down to do math.

Let us not be blind patriots of Yale, our states, or this country. But let us also not be blind to those around us whose views were insidiously crafted by our flawed system, for whom the issues of diversity and compassion have remained invisible. The source of this ignorance is not a single body of believers or one power-hungry white man—it is all of them in history, glorified and taught in school again and again to the next generation of Americans. In remembering this invisible lens and all the years that we held our own right hands over our hearts, perhaps we can stop asking “Why?” and instead answer the question, “What can we do next?”

Graphic by Haewon Ma YH Staff 6 _ The Yale Herald

Mon, Mar 6, 11:40 AM Hey Max, I was wondering if you would want to grab a meal sometime? It’s been a while since I’ve seen you*, and it’d be great to catch up.

Hey Dev, that sounds great! This week is horrible for me, though.

Maybe try next Sunday for brunch?

That works for me! How about Pierson at 12:30?

Perfect. See you then.

Friday 2:26 PM Hey Max, just wanted to touch base and see if we were still on for brunch this Sunday.

Sunday 12:36 PM Hey, I got us some spots in Pierson if you still plan on coming. Let me know!

Sunday 7:40 PM

I’ll get back to you!

Oh my god, Dev—I’m so sorry.

I just now got your last two texts, and I realize I forgot to tell you about this thing that came up at the last minute. any way I can make it up to you with dinner this Tuesday? Are you free then?

Haha yeah, no problem. I totally understand.

How about Davenport this time for dinner Tuesday Davenport. 6 pm?

That works for me. See you then.

Yesterday 6:04 PM Hey Max, I got us some spots. Lmk when You get here.

by Greg Suralik

Yesterday 7:10 PM Okay look, if you didn’t want to get a meal with me, whatever. No need to leave me hanging twice, alright?

Today 10:26 AM No, it’s not that! I’m so sorry Dev, it’s just been really crazy for me. We will definitely get a meal, I promise you.

You know your read receipts are turned on, right? I know you read my last few messages. You didn’t “just get them” Sunday night.

Read Today 10:40 AM

Graphic by Haewon Ma YH Staff Apr. 14, 2017 – 7

OR IA

NA .TA NG C @ ON YA TA LE CT .ED : U

a

BULLBLOG BLACKLIST people who eat matzah because they “like the taste”

goys don’t cry

WHAT WE HATE THIS WEEK

soccer tumblr

except my mom but no boys

how no one spends all day thinking about me

“not in my ass, daddy­—it’s too Messi”

throw it a heart at least

sending nudes to the groupme “ugh delibs”

hung juries

you’re out

we prefer the term “well-endowed”

ask me about my IUD

paying for birth control

invisible socks

i wish i could quit you

Apr. 7, 2017 _ 23